


Five Detours Martha Took When She Walked the World

by Tassos



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: 14valentines, Gen, warning: miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-05
Updated: 2011-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Detours Martha Took When She Walked the World</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Detours Martha Took When She Walked the World

### 1\. New York City, USA

  
Martha held her breath. The Toclafane patrol was bobbing along a scant ten feet away from where she had plastered herself against the wall. The TARDIS key nestled under her shirt was warm from her skin.

When the patrol passed, she continued onward, stopping at each corner to check for patrols before moving on. The hospitals were among the most heavily guarded buildings in cities these days. Desperate people came out of hiding to looking for help and were quickly rounded up and sent to the work camps. When she could, Martha took the time to see what she could scavenge. It never hurt to bring gifts when she went visiting.

Another ten minutes passed before Martha reached the Emergency entrance, but once she was inside it was easy. She found the pharmacy and boosted herself over the counter and hoped that the humans who were helping the Toclafane run the camps hadn't cleaned it out. The shelves were a mess, but there was still ibuprofen and amoxicillin. She dumped both as well as anything else that looked useful into her bag. On her way out, she passed the birth control section and grabbed everything there too.

### 2\. Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico

  
Martha didn't have much water on her when she found the girl in the desert. Her clothes were threadbare and she had a number marked into her skin. The closest work camp was over twenty miles away, and Martha had another day to travel before she was supposed to meet her next contact.

The air was dry and the desert was scrub and brush. Martha patted the girl on the cheek and was able to wake her up enough to give her the rest of her water in slow sips over half an hour so she wouldn't throw it back up. She checked the girl for other injuries and did her best with what remained in her first aid kit to care for the cuts but the rest would have to wait till she had better supplies and space to work out of the open. Martha tucked the girl under a bush, as out of the sun as she could get her, then walked back the way she came ten miles until she reached the last abandoned village she's passed through with a well.

It was past dark when she made it back to the girl, but the next day she was strong enough to tell Martha her name, Ana, and walk with her to the next rendezvous.

### 3\. Buenos Aires, Argentina

  
Late in night of her second stop in Buenos Aires, Martha jerked awake from a knock on her door. She had no weapon, hadn't ever carried one, and her body flooded with adrenaline. The knock came again as she took a deep calming breath before getting up to see who it was.

Her host, Daniella, stood with a candle in the hallway. "I'm so sorry to wake you," she said, the key to the TARDIS allowing Martha to understand her Spanish. "But you looked at Pedro's arm earlier."

"Yes, of course, I was a medical student," said Martha, remembering the young man who's arm she'd insisted at looking at after dinner. She's asked everyone if they needed medical help and several others had asked her to look at infected cuts and chest coughs. There wasn't much Martha could do for some of them but recommend hot tea and rest. She grabbed the small medical bag from her pack. "What's happened?"

"It's Isobel," said Daniella. "She . . . I think she's having a miscarriage. She's bleeding."

Isobel was in a lot of pain. Her sister sat with her, holding her while another woman Martha hadn't been introduced to was trying to stem the bleeding between her legs with a sheet. Martha's mind whirled through everything she knew about miscarriages - causes, complications, where the bleeding was likely coming from, and what she could do about it. She feared the last was not much.

She asked Daniella for water and soap and then asked her to boil a cut up sheet for sterile bandages.

Martha took Isobel's hand and squeezed to get her attention. "Isobel? Isobel, my name is Martha. Do you remember I spoke earlier?"

Isobel clutched Martha's hand so hard she felt the bones creak. "You talked about the Doctor," she said.

"Yes." Martha smiled as best she knew how. "Isobel, I'm a doctor too, a medical doctor. I'm going to do everything I can to help you through this. You're going to be fine." She gripped Isobel's hand tight. Then Daniella returned with the water and soap for Martha to wash her hands.

Martha checked Isobel's blood pressure and let out a sigh of relief when it remained steady and strong. She did as much as she could for the bleeding without being invasive -- she wanted to wait and see before attempting impromptu surgery in an old house with nothing more than Tylenol for the pain. She gave Isobel as much as she dared and told her it would be all right, it was early in her pregnancy and her body would most likely take care of it on its own. She prayed she wasn't lying.

By dawn it was over. Isobel's cramps subsided and the sheet was covered in a bloody mess of tissue. Slowly the bleeding tapered to something closer to a normal flow.

They were all exhausted but none of them left. Isobel's sister held her close, wiping the sweat from her forehead and tears from her cheeks, singing softly until Isobel fell into sleep. Martha stayed four days longer than she planned, sitting vigil with the other women as Isobel's grief ran its course.

### 4\. Francistown, Botswana

  
Martha wished she had more to give than a story. It was bare hope, unvarnished and fragile but every person in the old school house listened closely.

When she was done, the teachers rounded up the children and hustled them to bed. Patricia, the former principal came up to Martha and asked, "Would you come speak at the hospital? There are those who would take comfort from your story who could not come here."

"You have a hospital?" was Martha's first, startled reaction. Everywhere she'd been, the people who remained outside of the work camps had next to nothing and certainly no access to medical centers.

Patricia smiled faintly. "We are used to making do."

The hospital was really just an open ward in the building across the courtyard. Once upon a time it had been a clinic, but the medicine was long gone, and all that remained were two nurses and one white missionary to care for their many patients.

The sight of painfully thin people was no longer new for Martha, but the patients resting on cots under mosquito nets were truly sick, wasting away. Patricia introduced her to Melina, the tall nurse who was in charge.

"Can I do anything to help?" Martha asked her. "I've had medical training."

"I wish you could," said Melina, wiping her hands with a cloth. "But most of them have AIDS and the others will soon. When those buzzing balls came, well. It was hard before they came but at least there was some hope. All we can do now is make them comfortable."

Martha felt hollow as she looked back across the ward. Most of the patients were women, a few men scattered through, and two children, that Patricia was gently waking. She turned back when Melina put her hand on her shoulder, weary in the dark shadows of her face, solid and calm, absent of despair.

"Tell us your story, Martha Jones."

### 5\. Wutai, China

  
The cold managed to find its way through every crack and crevice of the house Martha was visiting. Twenty people were crammed into the second room, shuffling quietly to avoid detection form the patrols. Everyone was covered in a layer of dust; most of them worked by day in the coal mine just down the road. There wasn't a work camp here. According to her host, they were a small operation in Wutai.

Martha was seated at the table set next to the wall, her medical services on offer for anyone who needed them. After last night's story, word quickly went round the town. The morning was busy with infections and coughs. Martha still had a few supplies from her last hospital raid, but she wished - as she had a thousand times before - that she had more.

That night, she was washing her hands at the well, the water freezing her hands as she scrubbed them clean. One of the girls who had helped her earlier, fetching things mostly, was waiting in front of the door when she returned.

"Hi!" said Martha, smiling. "Sing, right?"

"Yes." The girl smiled. Then stumbled in her haste to open the door for Martha, suddenly remembering her manners. She hovered once they were inside. Martha paused, sure Sing wanted to say something but was too shy.

"You can ask me anything, you know," she finally told the poor girl. "I won't mind."

Sing gave her a careful look before her eyes darted away. Then back.

"Go on," said Martha encouragingly.

"I want to learn what you know. To be a doctor," said Sing in a rush. "My mother always said that if I study hard, work hard, I could go to school in the city, and then college in the USA, and then I'd be a doctor."

Martha's mind jumped to all the years she put in at uni then med school, everything she still didn't know. Sing was fifteen, maybe sixteen, but now that the words were spoken, she was all sincerity and determination.

"We need a doctor here," she said.

Martha was nodding before she even answered. "All right." She could make another raid, this time for another stethoscope and anything else that might be useful longterm. She nodded toward the back room, a smile spreading on her face to match Sing's. "Come on. We can start now."


End file.
